Injury rehabilitation can be a difficult thing to go through for anyone, even if you have good support from people around you. You may be itching to get back into professional sports, especially if this is the basis of your career, or you may just need to recover fully before you can get on with the rest of your life.

What you may not initially realise is the number of different sports health professionals who could potentially contribute to you making a full and speedy recovery. A few different types of professionals who may be able to help may include the following.

Physiotherapist

Qualified physiotherapists may be educated to degree level or beyond, depending on their specialism, and may even be in the process of training to become a doctor. If you’ve suffered a sports injury, especially a musculoskeletal one, they will usually come up with a bespoke exercise and treatment plan to help you gradually recover.

Chiropractor

In order to offer advice and treatment to people with spinal injuries, long term conditions or pain from various causes, qualified chiropractors must complete four years of specialised training to earn their doctorate. This is due to the highly complex nature of many spinal conditions and the broad range of potential consequences. A chiropractor will be essential in your recovery from any serious back problem. Continue Reading

In the first part of our article we looked at all the reasons you should say “yes” to vaccinating your baby and young children. After all, vaccinations were developed in order to protect us from harmful diseases that could be potentially fatal in many cases. However, they aren’t perfect and certainly aren’t suitable for everyone. Consider our list of downsides before you make your choice, starting with the following points.

Reasons to say “no”:

1) Vaccinations are irreversible. You can always have them later if you decide it’s a good idea, but once you’ve had one it’s impossible to take it back.

2) Many high profile incidents with vaccinations going wrong have been reported. Some injections that were considered safe later transpired to have dangerous side effects, resulting in drugs being withdrawn from the market. Continue Reading

The debate about whether or not vaccinations are a good idea continues to go back and forth, with plenty of reasons on each side. Ultimately it’s going to come down to your own personal decision as a parent, but first it’s important to make sure you’re making an informed choice. You should also consult with medical professionals and consider the advice of your GP, but to get you started here are some of the key arguments for and against.

Reasons to say “yes”:

1) Vaccinations protect your children from getting serious illnesses. This is the most obvious benefit, as it’s the whole reason they were created in the first place. The diseases that vaccinations can protect babies and children from can range from preventable inconveniences to severe and potentially deadly illnesses. Continue Reading

In recent years there has been much more of a focus in mainstream media on mental health, and increasingly there is more awareness of issues that have forced many people to suffer in silence previously. However, things are only just starting to change, and an area that still hasn’t been fully addressed is the noticeably higher rate of mental health problems among the LGBT+ community.

There are an increasing number of options for people struggling in this situation, including specialist gay & lesbian counselling to help people overcome the specific issues they face in day-to-day life. Mental health problems for LGBT+ people might stem from particular problems they are dealing with at a certain time, for example coming out, relationships, family issues, bullying and discrimination. Any kind of homophobic or transphobic abuse is highly likely to lead to low self esteem and increased pressure on a person’s mental health, so these kind of instances can often be traced back as the cause of an unhealthy cycle. Continue Reading

MRSA is a specific type of bacterial infection that has mostly received media attention due to its habit of spreading through hospitals and affecting vulnerable people. The abbreviation stands for meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, a strain of Staphylococcus aureus bacteria (usually referred to as “S. aureus”). Normally S. aureus bacteria are harmless, and can be found on the skin of healthy people known as carriers. However, once they enter the body, usually through open wounds, they can cause infections and get into the bloodstream which can be highly dangerous. The meticillin-resistant variety is particularly lethal and is usually referred to as a superbug, since it can’t be treated using most antibiotics like most S. aureus infections can.

Although MRSA is no more aggressive or contagious than other types of S. aureus infections, it presents more of a problem for people in hospitals and other places where those with weakened immune systems or other health conditions are all in close proximity and vulnerable to infections. That’s why healthcare professionals including doctors, nurses and other staff have a great deal of responsibility for ensuring the risk of MRSA is managed at all times. A trusted medical supplier can provide the necessary infection control medical supplies and equipment to minimise the risks, but training and extra precautions are needed too. Unfortunately, these five common mistakes make it easier for the illness to affect more people. Continue Reading

You might not be familiar with plantar fasciitis by name, but you may well have experienced problems with it without realising. It’s a painful condition caused by pressure that can be put on our feet, even from normal activities like walking and running. Fortunately there are various ways to tackle the causes of the condition and manage the painful symptoms, including specialist plantar fasciitis insoles for shoes and other techniques to minimise the stress placed on your feet.

The problem concerns the plantar fascia, which connects the entire length of the foot and should be flexible enough to stretch and bend correctly as you take each step and the position of your foot changes. If your foot remains too flat as you walk, it doesn’t flex as much and therefore doesn’t absorb the shock of hitting the ground as it should. This shock is then absorbed by the whole foot and actually affects the rest of your leg muscles and joints all the way up to your back. The plantar fascia loses some of its elasticity over time as it comes under more stress, which might be caused by long periods of activity like sports, or simply walking around your office at work. It can become inflamed as a result, often at the heel which is where most people suffer pain, but also along the length of the foot. The pain tends to be more noticeable at the start and the end of the day, but some people end up suffering from it to the extent that they’re unable to walk or go to work for a while.

This is more likely if you start to experience the symptoms but do nothing about it. Fortunately, there are things you can try to relieve the pain, with both long term and short term solutions available. A great example is using removable, liquid orthotic insoles which can be inserted into your shoes before spending a day on your feet. Liquid insoles are the most effective type for spreading out the pressure of walking and making it easier for your foot to move naturally. This is better for circulation and relieves pressure on your joints, but for treating plantar fasciitis this is a particularly effective remedy.

We’re able to benefit from a wide range of medical advances that have been made in the last few decades, especially thanks to huge leaps in the technology available at an affordable cost to hospitals, medical professionals and individuals. You might think that with all these advances we have mostly abandoned the rudimentary methods used to treat ailments in centuries gone by, but in fact there are many old fashioned treatments still in use across the world to this day. Here is a round-up of the top 5 surprising methods still used today.

Bee Venom

This has been used for thousands of years and is still going strong, sometimes involving milked venom and sometimes actually being stung by a bee. The reason this treatment is still widely used is thanks to its wide range of applications, having been shown in some cases to help with rheumatism, herpes, arthritis, tendinitis and even potentially cancer. Continue Reading

The US government recently announced that it has had success developing a robotic arm replacement that actually allows the wearer to feel things, reminiscent of something from science fiction. In summer 2015 the agency responsible confirmed it had made significant progress producing a prosthetic limb that could have its movement controlled by a human brain, but just months later the same developers were able to implement the ability to actually feel through the device. We have been making progress with prosthetic limbs for decades but this is a very major development.

The DARPA Prosthetic Hand (Image courtesy of DARPA)

The motor cortex is the portion of the brain that regulates muscle movement, and this is linked through the sensory cortex that transmits feelings back to the brain when things are touched and felt. The wiring of the robotic arm connects all these sections and allows for the desired movement and sensations. This was tested on a blindfolded subject to ensure the results were real, and the user was able to identify different touch sensations without vision which proved the effectiveness of the device. Continue Reading

Many people want to look into cosmetic surgery because they are unhappy with their appearance for whatever reason. However, a lot of these people are commonly put off the whole idea of surgery due to possible problems and complications associated with. Having surgical procedures done can be costly, inconvenient and even dangerous, especially if you have any other underlying problems. You can find more information from the NHS about what’s involved with cosmetic surgery.

There are many benefits to be had from simple cosmetic procedures however, since many people experience a range of problems caused by issues with the appearance of their skin or facial features, most commonly lack of confidence and even depression.

One option you might want to choose is dermal filler treatments. A benefit to cosmetic fillers is that they are more reasonably priced than private surgery, making it easy to choose an option that suits you. If you’re looking for expert clinics in London, you might find that these options are more expensive. However, across the UK there are still very high standards for different clinics, so if you look for non-surgical facelifts in Manchester for example, you will find companies like Diane Nivern Skincare Clinic who can talk you through your options. Continue Reading

There is an increase in the number of elderly people in the United Kingdom. This means that there is a need for the government to come up with ways to ensure that this increasing population is well catered for in terms of health. However, there seems to be a problem somewhere because according to experts there is a high number of an elderly person who cannot access high quality elderly health care. It is estimated that almost one million elderly people cannot access good health care as a result of the withdrawal of social care that is funded by the government.

According to a leading charity organization Age UK, almost nine hundred thousand people in England with ages between 65 and 89 have social care needs that are unmet. However, officials in the organization belief that this number might be almost one million by now. Despite that the issue of social care among the elderly was a hot topic during the election campaigns; the issue has become unpopular among the leaders. According to Carol Abrahams who is the chief executive Age UK, this might be the case most of the politicians are too young to focus on such an issue. Continue Reading